DRINKING WATER

GettyImages-2176083692 hurricane Building Resilient Water Treatment: How Ozone Systems Help Utilities Prepare for Extreme Weather

Ozone systems build resilience into water treatment. They ensure utilities remain chemically self-sufficient, allow fast recovery from power outages, and handle rapid water quality shifts.

DRINKING WATER CASE STUDIES AND WHITE PAPERS

  • Advanced Diagnostics of Thermal Mass Flow Meters

    Many thermal mass flow meters are of the insertion type. As a starting point, proper insertion depth and straight run per the manufacturer’s recommendations should be adhered to.

  • Proprietary Reactivation Study Demonstrates PFAS Removal And Destruction Expertise

    Thermal reactivation of granular activated carbon is a proven and scalable method to achieve >99.9% destruction removal efficiency for PFAS. This process fully restores the carbon for reuse, providing a sustainable solution that breaks the cycle of "forever chemicals."

  • Turbiwell Comparision Report Before And After Upgrade

    Russellville water treatment plant is a surface water plant using traditional clarification, filtration, and treatment. The plant historically has used traditional contact turbidimeters that employ tungsten lamps that required quarterly maintenance, but replaced their turbidimeters with Swan Turbiwell turbidimeters in 2012. Read the full report for a comparison of the performance of the Swan Turbiwell to the previously installed turbidimeters.

  • Does Grinding Create Microplastics?

    Some industry professionals have concluded eliminating the use of grinders will prevent microplastics from entering the water cycle. This thinking is wrong for a range of reasons.

  • Mastering The Application Of UV Advanced Oxidation Using Chlorine In California

    The Water Replenishment District of Southern California (WRD) is the largest groundwater agency in the State of California, managing local groundwater resources for over four million residents in South Los Angeles County. Learn about the new water treatment facility that they constructed which has allowed the region to be entirely self-sufficient in times of drought.

  • Stormwater Treatment and Reuse - Toronto, Ontario

    Sherbourne Common is an innovative waterfront park that provides the public with green recreational space along Lake Ontario in a former industrial area. 

  • Keys To A Successful AMI Rollout

    With its ability to improve customer service, reduce costs and boost visibility into water distribution systems, AMI has rapidly become a worthwhile investment. The ability to capture and analyze vast amounts of actionable data is at the core of AMI.

  • Case Study Report For Z-88® Radium Removal – Village Of Oswego, IL

    The Village of Oswego, IL selected WRT’s Z-88® Radium Removal treatment system to remove high concentrations of radium in their public drinking water.  Eight city wells are currently being treated by Z-88® Radium Removal treatment systems.  All eight treatment facilities are now producing safer drinking water since the first installations in 2005. 

  • High-Flux Polymeric Membrane For Industrial Water Separation

    Water is essential to numerous industries such as chemical manufacturing, automotive production, oil and gas refinery and power generation, yet the increasing scarcity of this precious resource makes its recovery from these activities more critical than ever.

  • How Water Utilities Can Transform Fragmented Data Into A Unified Asset For Operational Excellence

    Water utilities stand at the intersection of legacy infrastructure and digital innovation. As demand grows and environmental pressures mount, utilities face the challenge of transitioning from siloed, fragmented data systems to cohesive platforms that unlock the full potential of digital transformation.

DRINKING WATER APPLICATION NOTES

  • Real-Time Conductivity Monitoring Estimates Chloride Levels In Minnesota Watershed By Using The Aqua TROLL 200
    11/18/2011
    Monitoring deicing chemical levels can help researchers, city governments, and regulatory agencies understand runoff impacts on surface water, groundwater, and surrounding environments.
  • Circuit Board Cleanliness Testing
    10/29/2021

    Contamination of circuit boards can bring about severe degradation of insulation resistance and dielectric strength. Cleanliness of completed circuit boards is, therefore, of vital interest. For those companies who have established circuit board cleaning procedures, the MIL Spec P-28809 has been used as a guideline for control. Now a simple "on line" test for the relative measurement of ionic contamination has been developed.

  • Best Practices In Moist And Wet Gas Flow
    12/20/2021

    The Wet Gas MASSter sensor is for use in applications that have a high level of moisture or condensation present in the gas flow stream that cannot otherwise be removed.

  • Scrubber Application
    1/27/2022

    This customer supplies district heating and electricity for the region of Sønderborg. For one of their waste applications a MAG meter failed within 6 months, and was successfully replaced with a Panametrics Aquatrans AT600.

  • Reduced Bore Electromagnetic Flowmeter
    10/29/2021

    Being able to accurately measure both the quantity and rate of water passing through a water distribution system is crucial to gain an informed understanding of overall efficiency. As such, achieving a measurement that is exact as possible can have a significant impact on key areas. This includes supply planning, maintenance, resource deployment, leakage detection and the overall environment.

  • Ion Exchange Resins Reduce Pollution From Refineries
    12/23/2013

    A single operational oil and gas refinery produces millions of gallons of contaminated wastewater a year, leading to environmental pollution concerns. Ion exchange resins are a metal- and ion-removal solution to help clean this wastewater for plant reuse or safe disposal. This application guide explains how resins can be used to demineralize refinery water in process, boiler, and cooling water applications.

  • Oxidation Reduction Potential
    10/29/2021

    What is ORP? Oxidation Reduction Potential or Redox is the activity or strength of oxidizers and reducers in relation to their concentration. Oxidizers accept electrons, reducers lose electrons. Examples of oxidizers are: chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, bromine, ozone, and chlorine dioxide. Examples of reducers are sodium sulfite, sodium bisulfate and hydrogen sulfide. Like acidity and alkalinity, the increase of one is at the expense of the other.

  • Determination Of Pesticide Residues In Tea
    4/10/2015

    In 2012, Americans consumed well over 79 billion servings of tea, which is just over 3.60 billion gallons.

  • TOC Monitoring In Process Return Condensate
    4/23/2021

    Industrial power plants or co-generation power plants utilize steam for industrial purposes other than power production.

  • UV Technology Offers Solution For Emerging Water Crisis
    2/19/2014

    Many are turning to UV as an effective barrier to enable the reuse of wastewater, for indirect reuse, and aquifer recharge.

DRINKING WATER PRODUCTS

The tried-and-trusted SITRANS FST020 transmitter has been upgraded to deliver enhanced performance, user friendliness and options for customization.

Myron L Company’s 900 Series Multi-Parameter Monitor / Controllers combine Accuracy, Reliability, Simplicity, and Flexibility. The user-intuitive GUI (Graphical User Interface) allows easy and complete programmability of the instrument all from the LCD touch screen.

Given the critical shortage of drinking water in many regions, advanced treatment and reuse of wastewater is becoming increasingly common as municipalities address water demands and shrinking supplies.

Highly effective against bacteria and viruses, the Advanced Oxidation System (AOS) is also well-suited for the decontamination of hard-to-treat organic contaminants such as pharmaceuticals and other micropollutants The AOS can be configured to deliver optimized performance for most water or wastewater treatment applications.

ULTRAPEN™ PT4 is Myron L Company’s ground-breaking new pocket tester for measuring free chlorine disinfecting power, free chlorine equivalent (FCE), and temperature. It is waterproof and designed for accuracy and simplicity for use in diverse water quality applications.

Aria FAST mobile water units deliver the water you need, when and where you need it. Our mobile systems are easily installed and produce highquality water in as little as four hours after utility connections are complete.

LATEST INSIGHTS ON DRINKING WATER

  • Amazon and Xylem partner to tackle Mexico’s leaking water systems as the country balances water scarcity and a growing tech sector.

  • Water scarcity is increasingly impacting sectors from agriculture and energy to urban planning and high-tech manufacturing. Recently, industry leaders gathered to explore how new technologies and complex industrial demands are forcing a fundamental rethinking of water infrastructure.

  • Nobel-winning molecular materials are poised to reinvent purification, desalination, and reuse.

  • Researchers have developed polyimide-based membranes for membrane distillation (MD) that overcome three persistent issues in membranes for water treatment and gas separations: the need for pore-forming chemicals that prevent recycling, performance degradation due to pore wetting and fouling, and the inherent trade-off between high water flux and selectivity.

  • Small municipalities and industrial sites face constant pressure: deliver safe, stable water with limited resources and tight deadlines. Traditional on-site construction can stretch project schedules by months and introduce quality and cost risks. By shifting much of the fabrication off-site, these risks are dramatically reduced.

  • The 2024 hurricane season was one of the most severe on record, creating unprecedented destruction to the tune of $182.7 billion worth of damage. Scientists predict that this year's storm season, which officially began June 1, will likely be highly active and volatile as well. As hurricanes become more difficult to accurately predict and prepare for, the damage caused by burst pipes, flooding, downed trees and debris, and disrupted utilities is also increasing.

DRINKING WATER VIDEOS

The recoating of a potable water tank in Lancaster, PA, included an already tight timeframe and several challenges that cause delays.

RIP Kitty Hach-Darrow (October 20, 1922 - June 4, 2020), co-founder of Hach Company

Water utilities need reliable data to meet regulatory demands, manage operations, and deliver excellent customer service. Master Meter’s Allegro AMI and Allegro Mobile technologies offer smart, scalable solutions to support these needs. Allegro AMI provides hourly data on consumption, tampering, and leaks, automatically sent to the utility office.

North Carolina’s Cape Fear River is a massive water system. It stretches across the lower half of the state, collecting runoff from 29 counties and providing water to millions of people. But in the city of Wilmington, where the river meets the Atlantic Ocean, the water has residents worried.

Toxins from harmful algal blooms are increasingly contaminating source waters, as well as the drinking water treatment facilities that source waters supply. EPA researchers are helping the treatment facilities find safe, cost effective ways to remove the toxins and keep your drinking water safe.

ABOUT DRINKING WATER

In most developed countries, drinking water is regulated to ensure that it meets drinking water quality standards. In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administers these standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)

Drinking water considerations can be divided into three core areas of concern:

  1. Source water for a community’s drinking water supply
  2. Drinking water treatment of source water
  3. Distribution of treated drinking water to consumers

Drinking Water Sources

Source water access is imperative to human survival. Sources may include groundwater from aquifers, surface water from rivers and streams and seawater through a desalination process. Direct or indirect water reuse is also growing in popularity in communities with limited access to sources of traditional surface or groundwater. 

Source water scarcity is a growing concern as populations grow and move to warmer, less aqueous climates; climatic changes take place and industrial and agricultural processes compete with the public’s need for water. The scarcity of water supply and water conservation are major focuses of the American Water Works Association.

Drinking Water Treatment

Drinking Water Treatment involves the removal of pathogens and other contaminants from source water in order to make it safe for humans to consume. Treatment of public drinking water is mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. Common examples of contaminants that need to be treated and removed from water before it is considered potable are microorganisms, disinfectants, disinfection byproducts, inorganic chemicals, organic chemicals and radionuclides.

There are a variety of technologies and processes that can be used for contaminant removal and the removal of pathogens to decontaminate or treat water in a drinking water treatment plant before the clean water is pumped into the water distribution system for consumption.

The first stage in treating drinking water is often called pretreatment and involves screens to remove large debris and objects from the water supply. Aeration can also be used in the pretreatment phase. By mixing air and water, unwanted gases and minerals are removed and the water improves in color, taste and odor.

The second stage in the drinking water treatment process involves coagulation and flocculation. A coagulating agent is added to the water which causes suspended particles to stick together into clumps of material called floc. In sedimentation basins, the heavier floc separates from the water supply and sinks to form sludge, allowing the less turbid water to continue through the process.

During the filtration stage, smaller particles not removed by flocculation are removed from the treated water by running the water through a series of filters. Filter media can include sand, granulated carbon or manufactured membranes. Filtration using reverse osmosis membranes is a critical component of removing salt particles where desalination is being used to treat brackish water or seawater into drinking water.

Following filtration, the water is disinfected to kill or disable any microbes or viruses that could make the consumer sick. The most traditional disinfection method for treating drinking water uses chlorine or chloramines. However, new drinking water disinfection methods are constantly coming to market. Two disinfection methods that have been gaining traction use ozone and ultra-violet (UV) light to disinfect the water supply.

Drinking Water Distribution

Drinking water distribution involves the management of flow of the treated water to the consumer. By some estimates, up to 30% of treated water fails to reach the consumer. This water, often called non-revenue water, escapes from the distribution system through leaks in pipelines and joints, and in extreme cases through water main breaks.

A public water authority manages drinking water distribution through a network of pipes, pumps and valves and monitors that flow using flow, level and pressure measurement sensors and equipment.

Water meters and metering systems such as automatic meter reading (AMR) and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) allows a water utility to assess a consumer’s water use and charge them for the correct amount of water they have consumed.